


Try to get back to the start

by disjointed_scribblings



Series: the whole mix tape [4]
Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: (very minor), Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, But with a happy ending, Communication Failure, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, being idiots about feelings, cows (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:27:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26432644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disjointed_scribblings/pseuds/disjointed_scribblings
Summary: Truth was, cheesy as it sounded even in his own mind, John Bennet had never felt about anyone else the way he’d felt about Chuck Bingley.
Relationships: Jane Bennet/Charles Bingley
Series: the whole mix tape [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1857073
Comments: 6
Kudos: 67





	Try to get back to the start

Sunday dinners were sacred in the Bennet family. If you were a Bennet, and you were in Meryton, you were damn well spending your Sunday evening at the farmhouse.

John Bennet never missed one.

He liked the sense of tradition, liked seeing his family. Plus, he lived at the farmhouse, and had done for his entire life, minus his years at agricultural college. Even then he’d never been so far away that he couldn’t come home for the weekends.

On this particular Sunday, things had shaken out along their usual gendered patterns. Mom was in the kitchen, where she was supposedly cooking but mostly hassling Mary, Kitty, and Lydia into doing the work. John was in the family room with Leo, Dad, and Dan, who was one of the farm employees as well as Kitty’s on-again-off-again boyfriend. The fact that he’d stuck around for Sunday dinner after the evening milking was a sign that they were currently “on”, but John had learned never to assume with Kitty and Dan. On tv a baseball game was playing out. John didn’t really follow baseball, but it was the only sport that was really on tv this late into June.

The clear gender breakdown made John a bit uncomfortable, but there was only so much he could do when it was still technically his parents’ home. Leo tried to argue about it sometimes, but since he had the least patience out of all of them for handling Mom’s quirks, he didn’t usually back up his argument by stepping into the kitchen to lend a hand. Leo had never brought a girlfriend over to Sunday dinner—“You know Mom would co-opt her into cooking, and I’m not subjecting anyone to _that_ ,” he’d said the one time John had asked about it.

And so, while the men in the family room were sometimes joined by Dan, and less often one of Lydia’s seemingly endless string of boyfriends, the women in the kitchen never had another helping hand.

John didn’t know what they’d do if _he_ brought a boyfriend home for Sunday dinner. He’d never had a serious enough boyfriend to to make the hassle of testing it out worthwhile.

His father didn’t know what to do with a gay son, so they just… never talked about it. It wasn’t as awkward as it sounded. Dad wasn’t exactly talking about girls with Leo either.

As for Mom—she’d have figured out, maybe, what to do with a gay son who was into fashion, or musicals, or who wanted to gossip about cute boys. But a son who was the exact same as any other farmer in the area, just into men instead of women? That, she couldn’t quite manage. John knew his mother loved him, but she was still confused by him.

So there wasn’t much chance that he’d be able to change the gender role situation in the Bennet family. Still, as the oldest child and semi-official family peacemaker, it was of course John’s duty to get up from the sofa and head toward the kitchen when a squabble broke out.

“Jesus, Mom, I’m a grown-up, I can have a damn beer!” Lydia was snarling.

“Not under my roof, you can’t. That’s what we agreed after the charges were dropped, remember?”

“The charges had _nothing_ to do with booze.”

This was true. Lydia had always been Mom’s favourite, so it was probably easier for Mom to tell herself that the booze had been a part of it, that Lydia had been seduced by too many half-price bar rails into putting money into a sketchy business. It gave Mom something to blame that was outside of Lydia’s control.

But, in all honesty, they’d all been suckered in by Jordana Wickham. She had been fun and outgoing and seemed genuinely interested in Meryton, in the family and the farm. She’d said she was only tending bar because she liked talking to people. And they’d all been interested in her herbal remedy business at first. But the longer she’d talked about it, the more it had sounded like a bad investment. Ultimately Lydia was the only one who’d bought in, and paid the price when one of the herbal teas she sold nearly killed one of her customers.

And then Lydia had been arrested, and Jordana had said “Whoops”, laughed, and promptly skipped town.

All the charges against Lydia had eventually been dropped, but Meryton wasn’t a big place. This story would follow her around for years.

John hoped that she’d at least learned something about caution and compassion from the experience. Leo and Mary were both convinced she hadn’t, Dad didn’t want to talk about any of it now that the worst was over, and as for Mom—well, it was easier to blame the booze.

Which was why she and Lydia were still arguing.

“Oh, fer chrissakes,” Leo muttered, as their youngest sister slammed a cabinet door shut.

“The _charges_ were there in the first place because you were _drinking too much_ and got yourself into some _stupid_ —“

“I’ll grab the drinks,” John cut in, before his mother could say something rude. “What do you want, Mary?”

Mary looked up gratefully from the salad spinner.

“Iced tea, please.”

“Alright. Lydia?”

“Ginger ale,” his youngest sister grumbled petulantly, just as the phone rang. The landline—while both their parents had cell phones, service was spotty out here and neither of them used their cells much.

“Can someone get that?” Mom called. “My hands are full here!”

“I’ve got it, I’ve got it.” Dad, reaching for the cordless phone and rolling his eyes at the kids these days who didn’t like answering calls. “Hello? —No, we’re just about to sit down to dinner. What’s that? …Well fine, I’ll tell her.”

He hung up and called toward the kitchen, “That was Phil. He said to tell you that researcher is back again, the one who was here last summer looking for squirrels.”

It didn’t sink in for a moment. John was already turning back to the kitchen, so he saw Mary first, giving him a steady look. Then Kitty, who had turned from her place by the stove with an expression on her face that was something like pity, and Mom, who was staring straight at him with something that was more like horror.

John abruptly swivelled toward the family room, where Leo’s eyes were on him, wide with concern, and that was when it hit.

He was back for the summer. The squirrel researcher. _Chuck_.

“Well!” Mom’s offended voice. “I don’t know why Phil thinks he needs to call over here with that kind of news. Why should we care? Damn rodents, those squirrels!”

Sounded like she’d heard, or figured out, about him and Chuck. He’d wondered, last summer, whether she’d caught on.

“Besides, last summer is ancient history,” Mom continued, on a roll now, and his siblings were still _looking_ at him, and he had to be alone.

“Right, drinks,” John said quickly. “I’ll go grab them. Ginger ale for Lydia, iced tea for Mary—Kitty, you want a beer?”

He didn’t wait for her response, heading right out into the garage, opening the old fridge where they kept cold drinks during the summer months, and staring unseeingly at the rows of cans and bottles.

“Well,” he said aloud to the cans of Mary’s iced tea. “So Chuck Bingley is back. Well.”

John had known that Chuck would be coming back to the area. It was a multi-year project, wasn’t it, this research he was doing. Just—now that it had happened, it suddenly felt too soon.

“John? You okay?”

Leo. Of course Leo had come out to check on him. Of course Leo would expect him to have a reaction to the news, to know whether or not he was okay. Leo always reacted to everything right away, sometimes too quickly.

“I’m fine,” John said, but he didn’t know if he was.

He didn’t know what to think, didn’t know what he was feeling. It had always taken him some time to process his emotions, understand what they actually were, and even longer to find a way to put them into words, so right now he was just staring at the beer and pop and wine coolers in the old drink fridge and feeling numb.

“At least you get some advance warning this way,” Leo said after a moment. “So you won’t just run into him on the street unexpectedly.”

Well Jesus, what a thing to put into someone’s head.

John deked right away from that. “Did you see Dan finish his beer? I think he finished it. I’ll bring him another one.”

“John—“

He picked up the last of the drinks and let the fridge door slam. “I can’t talk about this, Leo. Stop looking at me like that.”

“Okay. But I’m here when you do want to talk.”

Kitty sent him another anxious look when he came back into the kitchen, and Mom touched his arm or his shoulder every time she bustled by, and Leo watched him like a ticking time bomb. Thank God Dad was too oblivious, Lydia too self-centred, Dan too polite to notice or say anything. John tried to pay attention to the conversation around him, but in his head all he could hear was that one phrase, repeated like a drum beat: he’s back, he’s back, he’s back.

As soon as the last dessert plate had been cleared—Leo was on dishwasher-loading duty tonight—John stood and excused himself. “I have to go check on something, I’ll be a few minutes.” 

“Oh, Johnny.” His mother stood as well, walked around the table to enfold him in an embrace. “I don’t know what we’d do without you around here.”

Which was her way of saying ‘I love you’. John patted her back, extracted himself from her arms, and stepped around her to escape to the barn.

Inhaling the familiar, comforting scents of cow and manure and hay and alfalfa feed, he put his hands on his head and held on tight, letting that drumbeat of a thought overtake him again. He’s back, he’s back, he’s back…

Truth was, cheesy as it sounded even in his own mind, John had never felt about anyone else the way he’d felt about Chuck Bingley. Other relationships had felt like work, like some kind of balancing act. With Chuck though—everything had felt so natural, so smooth. Like they didn’t have to balance, they just were there together and everything fit. Like there was no wrong thing to do or say.

In fact, everything had been so natural and so smooth that they’d never ended up talking about what their ‘relationship’ was at all. That when it came down to it, John had fallen right back into old habits and hadn’t been able to decide what he was feeling, let alone say it aloud.

And then Chuck had texted a casual goodbye, like they were just acquaintances going separate ways, like those golden weeks meant nothing. And he’d left.

“Johnny?”

John pulled his hands out of his hair and tried to smile when Kitty came in the barn. “Hey. You heading out?”

She came over to kiss his cheek. “Yeah. I just wanted to say goodbye. And ask you what I should do if he comes into the cafe.”

“What?”

“Oh, you know.” She shrugged. “If you want me to yell at him for you, or I could just be really bitchy. Or if he makes you feel shitty again I could spit in his coffee.”

Jesus. “Do not spit in anyone’s coffee,” he ordered his sister. “Honestly, just be normal. Please. I don’t want things to get any weirder than they have to be.”

“Fine.”

“And I think Lydia was enough. We don’t need another Bennet getting fired or arrested for giving people drinks with stuff they shouldn’t have in them.”

“Uncle Phil wouldn’t fire me for spitting in someone’s coffee.” Kitty sounded amused at the idea. “Even if I wasn’t his favourite niece. Who do you think I learned it from?”

She was gone on a lilting laugh before John had to come up to a response to that, thank God. He hoped it was only a joke. Every time he thought his youngest sisters had grown up and matured…

He waited in the barn until he was pretty sure the rest of the family would be scattered throughout the house, no one ready to ambush him with surprise declarations of affection or concern. Of course he hadn’t waited long enough. When he got to his bedroom, Leo was already there.

“Hey—“

John cut his brother off. “I still don’t think we need to talk about it. It’s… it’s not a big deal. I know it’s going to be awkward, but I’ll get through it.”

Leo looked skeptical. “Are you sure it’s not a big deal?”

“Yes. It’s always weird seeing an ex when things didn’t end great. But I’m over him.”

It was mostly true. Well, partly true.

“I saw him, you know,” Leo said hesitantly, and John turned to stare at his brother. “When I visited the Pemberley campus in March with Eddie and Aunt Grace. I meant to say something when I got back, but everything happened with Lydia and—it just slipped my mind.”

“How—“

“We ran into Darcy and she invited us out for dinner with her sister, and Chuck came too. It was fine. Normal. Not awkward. Well, Chuck wasn’t awkward, anyway. Darcy—but that’s another story.”

Well, _that_ was a surprise. Darcy was Chuck’s best friend, and she and Leo had spent most of last summer chirping each other. Yet it sounded like they’d all sat down for a meal together. voluntarily, with Aunt Grace and Darcy’s sister no less, and Leo had “forgotten” to say anything for months?

“What do you mean, that’s another story? Did you and Darcy drop the gloves at the dinner table or something?” John asked.

“No. Jesus. Everything was very civil.”

“Did… did he say something at dinner? About me?”

“No, he—no. He didn’t mention you.”

It would have been strange if he had, but somehow it still hurt.

“But,” Leo continued, “after Darcy yelled at me—“

“She yelled at you?”

Leo and Darcy hadn’t exactly gotten along last summer, but they’d never _yelled_. To John’s surprise, Leo blushed.

“Well, maybe I yelled first, I don’t remember. The point is—“

“You yelled at each other at dinner?”

“What? No, this was before.”

John shook his head, trying to fit the pieces together. “Wait, you yelled at each other and still went to dinner with both your families?”

“I—okay, don’t worry about the timeline.” Leo waved a hand as if to brush away John’s questions, or maybe to distract from the fact that he was still obviously blushing. “Actually, just forget about the yelling entirely. The important part is that she said some things that… it just put a different light on what happened last summer, I guess. So when Chuck came to dinner—he seemed tired. A bit sad.”

“And?”

“And I think he regrets ending things between you like that.”

Leo said it triumphantly, like it was a victory. John didn’t understand why he was still pushing.

“Maybe he regrets that he ended it over text,” John said. “That doesn’t mean he regrets ending it. Maybe he was sad and tired because he was busy at work. You and Kitty, you keep on trying to turn this into some kind of epic romance instead of just… I don’t know. A casual thing that accidentally got a bit too intense.”

“Don’t put me in the same boat as Kitty!”

“Leo—“

“I’ve never seen you like that with anyone else. And I don’t believe you when you say you’re over him. Maybe it sounds like I’m grasping at straws, but I would put money down that he’s not as over you as he seems, either.”

Leo left the room on the heels of that dramatic statement, and John went to the door to call down the hallway, “Do you think Darcy’s here for the summer again, too? Are you going to yell at each other again and then be weird about it?”

Leo’s bedroom door slammed.

John closed his own door and leaned his forehead against it.

It had been a conversation with Leo that had turned everything around last summer, too. The weeks had flown by so quickly that John had been surprised when Chuck started talking about heading back to Lambton, where he had classes to teach at Pemberley University. Chuck had started dropping in little comments about the fall, the long-term, the future, that John had thought might be openings for a serious talk. But the serious talk hadn’t materialized, and John had sought Leo’s advice.

“Do you think he’s going to ask you to come with him?” Leo had asked.

John had been shocked. “I—I have no idea. It’s not like I could go. What about the farm?”

“Do you want him to ask anyway?”

Leo had said it like it would be a good thing, to be asked to leave. Of course that was how Leo would see it— he wasn’t as tied to Longbourn Dairy Farm, already had one foot out the door.

But for John, Longbourn Dairy Farm was part of his identity. Part of his life plan. If he wasn’t John Bennet of Longbourn Dairy Farm, who was he? No, he couldn’t, and he wouldn’t leave Meryton.

In his twenties, John had vaguely expected that he’d go on as he was then, sort-of dating Nick Goulding. Every so often they’d break up, because they weren’t that great together, and then after a while they’d get back together, because there wasn’t anyone better around. Kind of like Kitty and Dan, but worse. The dating pool for gay farmers in Hertford County was not very deep.

It hadn’t been a very healthy relationship, so John had been a bit relieved but not very surprised when Nick eventually left for a bigger town.

All this to say that while in Leo’s mind, the idea of Chuck asking John to come with him would be romantic, to John, it would be just another sign that he’d never be able to have a happy long-term relationship _and_ be John Bennet of Longbourn Dairy Farm at the same time.

So John hadn’t wanted Chuck to ask him to come to Lambton. But he also hadn’t been able to figure out what he did want. A happy memory of a perfect summer? A promise to pick back up next time they were in the same place? An attempt at long-distance dating? Or something more, something impossible when they’d only known each other two months?

If he’d been able to get his feelings, his thoughts, his words in order, maybe he could have talked to Chuck about it.

But John hadn’t figured out what he wanted, and Chuck had stopped making those loaded comments about the future. And then, all of sudden, the end of August had arrived, and Chuck had texted goodbye while driving out of town, and that was the end of that.

“I’m over him,” John said now to his reflection in the mirror. “I am. I’m just not over the possibilities I felt with him.”

* * *

John got up at 4:30 as usual. He hadn’t slept well, but he was a farmer. There were things that needed doing. And besides, he liked that this close to the summer solstice the sun rose at the same time he did.

Mary was already in the kitchen scrambling eggs when he came down. She put a portion on a plate for him before he could ask, and touched his arm in thanks when he topped up her coffee.

Sometimes he wondered if it would come down to the two of them one day. Kitty and Lydia had their jobs, and Leo had been restless to get off the farm for years. Someday their parents would retire to some backwoods cabin like Dad always threatened to do, and it would be just John and Mary, unmarried siblings, keeping the farm running and having these quiet meals together, year in and year out, like Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert in Anne of Green Gables.

John wasn’t sure about adopting a talkative redheaded orphan though.

“Have you ever thought about getting a dog?” he asked.

Mary looked up from her phone and wrinkled her nose, and John suddenly remembered the other reason why they wouldn’t need a talkative orphan to keep things from getting too quiet around the house. “No. Do you want a dog? There are a lot of people out there who get one without considering the implications.”

“Never mind. Just a passing thought.”

But it was too late. Mary had warmed to the topic. John ate the rest of his eggs listening to a speech on irresponsible dog owners who failed to take into account medical and kennel expenses or the sheer amount of time and effort required to properly train their pets.

“I mean, really, I was listening to a podcast that touched on this, and they said it’s worse for the animals than for the people, the way people treat their poorly disciplined dogs,” she was saying when they finished eating and headed down to the barn for the morning milking. Leo, looking like he’d had a worse night than John, joined them and grumbled until Mary stopped talking.

Leo didn’t sing to the cows this morning as he nudged them to the milking parlour, which was a surer sign of a bad mood than anything else.

After the milking and the feeding they scattered, Mary to the herd management computer, Leo up to the roof of the barn to patch a leak, and John out to check on the alfalfa fields.

* * *

John had just climbed off the tractor and was starting to think about lunch when someone said his name, and he turned to the door of the shed and stared.

It was Chuck.

“Um, hi,” John managed as Chuck walked forward.

“Hey.”

“I, uh, heard you were in town. Didn’t expect to see you out this way.”

“I stopped in at the house. Mary told me you were out in the field, but then I saw you come back in so I followed you.”

They were only a couple metres apart now. Chuck wasn’t dressed for his fieldwork today. Instead he wore pressed khakis and a sea-blue polo shirt that matched the wayfarer sunglasses he carried. In a fidgety motion, he stuck the sunglasses on top of his head, settling his windswept hair, and just like that John’s stomach tightened, his skin tingled. He swallowed thickly.

“You’re back for the summer?”

Chuck nodded. “Yeah, got in yesterday. Renting the same cabin. Tracking the same northern flying squirrels. You know.”

“Cool. Cool.” Jesus, John must sound like an idiot. He probably looked like an idiot, too. He hadn’t shaved this morning, and he’d thrown on a faded t-shirt and torn work jeans to go out to the fields. He’d stuck a baseball cap onto his head at some point, but he couldn’t even remember which one.

“I, uh, I wanted to… well, I wanted to stop by and say hi.”

Chuck sounded a bit like an idiot too. Thank God John wasn’t alone in feeling this weirdness.

“Great, yeah. Hi.”

“Yeah.”

They stared at each other for another moment. Chuck opened his mouth, like he was going to say something else—and shook his head.

“Well, anyway. Like I said, just wanted to stop by.”

“Um, yeah. Well… welcome back to Meryton.”

Another moment, and then Chuck turned away. “Okay.”

“See you around,” John said to the other man’s back, and then Chuck was walking away.

The minute the door closed, John sank down to the ground and leaned his head back against the wall.

“At least that’s over,” he said to the ceiling, and then took off the baseball cap to shove a hand through his hair. The hat had the logo of a local minor hockey team—not the worst thing in the world. Okay.

It had been awkward. Chuck had probably had the right idea, coming here so that they could have their first awkward meeting in private. It would be better the next time they saw each other.

If only Chuck hadn’t looked so attractive, with the shirt and the hair and the sunglasses and the _face_. At least he hadn’t smiled. The first time they’d met, at some bush party Lydia and Kitty had dragged John to even though he was really too old for bush parties, Chuck had been cute, and new, and interesting, and then he’d caught John’s eye and smiled, and that smile took him from cute to gorgeous and turned John into a goner.

But that was almost a year ago. Now John was no longer a goner. He was steady. Well, mostly steady. A mostly steady person who had to sit down for a few minutes because of the way his ex looked with a pair of sunglasses on his head.

Crap.

“I’m not over him, am I?”

The door slammed back open then, and John froze in place as Chuck marched purposefully back in.

“No. I’m not doing that again. I came here with something to say, and I’m going to—what are you doing down there?”

John tried to shrug from his place on the floor. Chuck had come back. What did that mean? Why was John’s heart suddenly pounding so hard? “Um. Just. Taking a break. Sitting down for a bit.”

A pause.

“Okay. Uh, can I… sit with you for a minute?”

“Uh, sure.”

John’s heart was pounding so loudly that he was afraid Chuck would hear it as he lowered himself gingerly to the ground.

“What did you want to say?”

Chuck looked down at his hands and breathed out, slowly, like he was doing yoga or something. He was nervous, John realized. Did that make it better or worse?

“Well,” Chuck said after another deep yoga breath. “First of all, I need to apologize. For the way… the way I left last summer. It was rude, and disrespectful, and it… made it seem like you, like what we had, wasn’t important. And it was. Important. To me, I mean.”

“Me too,” said John, when it was clear that Chuck was waiting for a response. The apology itself wasn’t surprising. Chuck _had_ been a bit rude, so of course he’d want to clear the air. The rest though…

_You… what we had…_

_It was important to me._

That, John needed to think about some.

“Can you forgive me?” Chuck asked, and John said, “Of course.”

Chuck looked up at John’s face for a second, and then down at the floor. “You’re letting me off that easy?”

Truth was, he’d decided between tossing and turning last night that if Chuck wanted to apologize so they could put last summer behind them, that was just fine and all for the best. But then—who would have expected Chuck to come by on only his second day in Meryton? John’s heart was still pounding.

“It’s not easy. You came out here and apologized,” he managed.

Chuck didn’t say anything. He was looking at his hands again—no, he was looking at John’s hand, at John’s arm. Last summer, Chuck had laughingly kissed his way up the freckles on that arm and made a joke about sunscreen. John wondered if Chuck was remembering the same thing. He swallowed.

“You said first of all, earlier. Does that mean there’s more?”

“Um, yeah. Okay.” Chuck did another yoga breath. “Apology was part one. Part two is explanation, if you want to hear it.”

John wasn’t totally sure that he did want to hear the explanation, but he nodded anyway so Chuck wouldn’t leave.

“Okay. Well. I don’t know where to start this story. Just… cut me off if you don’t want to hear it anymore.” Chuck paused to look up at the ceiling before starting. “I guess I’ll start last summer. Last summer. It was… pretty great, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. But—we never talked about, you know, _us_.”

“I know.” Because John hadn’t known how to talk about it.

“Honestly,” Chuck continued, “I didn’t even think about it. We just—everything just felt right. So I kind of jumped in with both feet, which I have a tendency to do. I didn’t even realize how many assumptions I was making until Darcy caught me, um, trying to rearrange my teaching schedule so I wouldn’t have to actually be on campus.”

John shook his head, not understanding. But Chuck was on a roll now, staring intently across at the tractor.

“I mean—ridiculous, right? It was already the middle of August, so I would have had to cash in every favour anyone ever owed me to get someone else to cover my classes. And it’s not like I could have stayed in the cabin for too much longer, it’s not winterized—“

And that was when John got it.

_Chuck had wanted to stay._

“—and anyway, that’s when Darcy pointed out that maybe before I did anything too big I should actually talk to you, and make sure you were on the same page. And I meant to, but I kept on chickening out and just… hinting that we should talk and hoping you’d pick up on it and you’d start the conversation. Only you didn’t, and it—okay, this is the part where you should really cut me off if you don’t want to hear about it. Because this is where I come in with my baggage.”

Chuck paused for another yoga breath. John was having trouble breathing himself.

He’d wanted to _stay_.

“I had this ex, you see, this guy I dated for three years, and I kept thinking that if we got serious enough he would introduce me to people as his boyfriend instead of his friend. Only he never did. And when I finally worked up to talk to him about it, it turned out he didn’t think we were ever very serious at all. And that hurt. So I know that it was unfair to you, but still—every time I said something about the fall, or something that might be an opening for a relationship talk, and you didn’t say anything, I was afraid that… that it was the same thing over again. That I’d built this whole romantic thing in my head that wasn’t really there, and if I did force you to talk about us, it would just end in more hurt for me. So… I just kind of avoided it all. Which is one of my biggest flaws, probably, how good I am at avoiding things that are unpleasant.”

Chuck took a deep, shuddering breath, while John tried to digest his words.

He’d wanted to _stay_. He’d worried that _John_ wasn’t interested in a serious relationship. Had everything turned upside down?

“So,” Chuck continued after a minute in a calmer voice. “That’s the explanation, then, I guess. That I said goodbye over text because I was too chickenshit to tell you I was falling in love with you.”

John’s brain stuttered over _love_ , and the past tense of _was_.

He’d spent the past ten months focusing on the end, the uneasy week or so he’d spent beating himself up for not being able to figure out what he wanted, Chuck’s increasing distance, that last devastating text. He’d almost forgotten how it had been before. How quickly it had turned. He tried to fit Chuck’s explanation into the pieces of his memory. He couldn’t, because his memories were so tinged with the dread that Chuck would ask him to leave.

But Chuck had wanted to stay.

John had been silent for too long, apparently, because beside him Chuck shuffled around, preparing to stand.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have just dropped all that on you. I’ll—“

John reached out before he knew what he was doing to grab Chuck’s hand. Chuck stilled.

“No, don’t—“

“Okay,” Chuck whispered, settling back down.

“I’m not—I’m not good at saying what I feel. It takes me a minute to find the words sometimes.”

Chuck didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t try to leave again, either. His hand was warm in John’s, and he didn’t make any move to pull away.

It was John’s turn to do the yoga breathing now, as he tried to find words for the roiling emotions inside him.

“You shouldn’t call yourself chickenshit,” he started, because it was the easiest thing to respond to. “That stuff is really nasty-smelling. I guess you haven’t driven out by the Longs' farm on the twelfth concession. They’ve got mountains of it.”

“No, I guess I didn’t get out that way last summer.”

John nodded, took another second to marshal his thoughts.

“I hope you know I wasn’t trying to… hide. Us. I just, I don’t like when they gossip about me in town. And they do. So I try not to give them extra material. I guess I’m a bit of a private person. Even—my parents can be difficult sometimes, so it’s not always worth rocking the boat. And we weren’t—if you were my boyfriend I hope you know I’d introduce you to people like that.”

Chuck’s mouth opened, and stayed open for a few seconds before he stammered, “I… I know you’re a private person. I never thought about the rest.”

“I’m not—like I said, I’m not good at talking about what I’m feeling, or what I want. Especially when it’s important. And you’re important.”

“Oh,” breathed Chuck. He’d shifted their hands so that their fingers were interlaced.

“Your ex sounds like he sucks, by the way.”

Chuck laughed. “Yeah. Well. I think Darcy did something terrible to him after all that, but I’m not brave enough to ask.”

Another minute of silence while John juggled his thoughts.

“I was afraid you were going to ask me to come to Lambton with you.”

When Chuck said, “Wait, what?” John realized it had come out abruptly.

“Last summer. When you started to talk about the fall, and teaching, and just… the future in general. I never thought you’d want to stay here, in Meryton. Not because I wouldn’t want you to. Just—there’s nothing here for you, no universities or anything. So I was afraid you’d want me to move to Lambton with you. Maybe not yet, but eventually.”

“But—your farm is here,” said Chuck, sounding confused.

“Yeah.”

“I wouldn’t… I would never ask you to leave your farm.”

John felt a bit dizzy at that. It was maybe the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to him. Right up there with the _I was falling in love with you_.

“I knew I couldn’t go. And I—it never even occurred to me that you’d want to stay.”

“I don’t know how you can say there’s nothing here for me when _you’re_ here,” Chuck said, because apparently he was just piling on the romantic statements today.

John stroked his thumb across Chuck’s, and Chuck looked up from their intertwined hands to his face.

“That was why you didn’t want to talk about it?”

“Yeah.”

They were both quiet for a minute, staring at each other. Eventually Chuck let out a humourless laugh. “I really fucking wish we’d managed to have this conversation last August.”

John could feel the corners of his mouth turning up towards a smile. “Yeah.”

They stared at each other for another minute, smiling this time, and then Chuck cleared his throat.

“So. That was part two. Do you want to hear part three?”

“Yeah.”

Chuck’s voice was quiet, but as intense as the expression in his eyes. “Part three is where I ask if we can try again this summer, now that we have all of our cards on the table. And we do things right this time.”

“Yes,” said John, “what’s part four?”

And then they were somehow kissing and laughing at the same time.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from AC/DC's Ride On. 
> 
> In what is maybe the most research I have ever done for a fic, I read several issues of Milk Producer magazine and a non-zero number of academic articles about G. sabrinus (northern flying squirrel) just to make sure my background info was plausible. Any errors of course fully my fault :)


End file.
